SANTA CLARA, Calif. — September 25, 2012 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today extends its leadership in virtualization with the industry’s first unified storage product that provides enterprise-class virtualization for all data types (block, file and object). The new Hitachi Unified Storage VM (HUS VM) separates itself from the competition by enabling 90 percent faster data migration and 30 percent better total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to non-virtualized systems. Designed specifically for small and medium enterprises, HUS VM simplifies operations and enables more efficient storage management across all virtualized storage assets, including multivendor storage. HUS VM is also supported by Hitachi Command Suite management software as part of a single software management platform. This configuration helps customers deliver storage service levels when, where and how they need them. Backed by legendary Hitachi reliability, HUS VM is the only unified storage product to provide a 100 percent data availability guarantee.

A problem for small and medium enterprises today is a lack of scalable, versatile virtual storage solutions. Without these solutions IT staff members with multiple duties struggle with the same demands as large enterprises, but with even tighter budgets. In addition, smaller enterprises now require virtualization solutions that consolidate and simplify data management, enhance performance and reliability, and improve serviceability. Until today, small and medium enterprises were forced to compromise quality, reliability and the ability to effectively virtualize their data in order to meet their limited budgets. These tradeoffs could result in more complexity, missed service level objectives (SLO), disruptions in data mobility, and lower efficiency overall. As the first unified storage platform with enterprise-class virtualization for all data types, HUS VM brings to small and medium enterprises much greater capacity-efficiency across all storage assets.

According to Roberto Basilio, vice president, Infrastructure Platforms Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems, “Today HDS has redefined what virtualization means to small and medium enterprises by bringing our industry-leading virtualization capabilities to this market segment. Now all sizes of enterprises can virtualize, manage and unify their choice of data on a single platform. No other IT systems company today offers the combination of performance, scalability and virtualization capabilities that HDS does with the new HUS VM. Customers can now deploy storage for all data types and easily grow to meet expanding requirements while still meeting service level objectives for critical business applications. They can meet these business needs and still control the costs of managing their most valuable information. Alongside our market-leading Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform, we now have what we believe to be the industry’s strongest enterprise portfolio spanning small, medium and large enterprises.”

According to Henry Baltazar, senior storage analyst, 451 Research, “One of the key advantages of HUS VM – beyond being unified – is its virtualization capabilities. HDS built this product from the ground up to address specific customer requirements around virtualization and scale, consolidating the storage infrastructure under a single management framework at a lower price point. With this move, HDS is enabling customers to start reducing their licensing fees on older storage systems. Therefore, as an aggressive move against NetApp and EMC, this new product makes perfect sense for HDS.”

HUS VM: Virtualize, Manage, Unify All Data

Incorporating a new storage virtualization system, HUS VM is a unified storage platform for all data, built from the ground up to meet application availability and performance requirements with a lower investment in storage. It is simple to manage, optimized for critical business applications, and more efficient than other storage systems on the market today. HUS VM features include:

Enterprise Storage Virtualization

Compared to other products in its class, HUS VM offers the highest external virtualized capacity – up to 64PB, which can include storage systems from different manufacturers.

Total cost of ownership is reduced by 30 percent compared to non-virtualized systems

Up to 40 percent lower environmental cost is due to power efficiency and space-saving design.1

The highest-in-class single home directory size manages more files and folders than competitive offerings.

The largest-in-class volumes decrease the time needed to manage growth of large file systems and millions of files.

Extends HDS Flash Strategy

HUS VM supports solid state drive options now, and will extend the recently announced HDS flash strategy with integrated flash devices based on the new Hitachi flash memory controller unveiled in August.

Customer Benefits and Support

HUS VM provides small and medium enterprises with the highest reliability and the highest scalability inside and outside the storage system. With HUS VM, organizations can increase their capacity efficiency with storage virtualization and ease the migration of data with less effort.

HUS VM is supported by a proven global services organization and a network of partners to help reduce operational and capital costs. HUS VM also simplifies virtualized application management and deployment for block and file requirements, including VMware, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and VMware View (VDI). Additional HUS VM plug-ins and adapters will help administrators of Microsoft System Center, Oracle Enterprise Manager and VMware vCenter gain detailed visibility and manageability of their infrastructure applications. Several strategic partners, including technology partners Brocade, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft Corp. and VMware, and Hitachi TrueNorth™ Partners including ASG, Datalink, Lumenate, Mainline Information Systems and ViON, have provided their perspectives on the new Hitachi Unified Storage VM. Enhanced HDS migration and management services leverage virtualization and a unified architecture to transition customers seamlessly to the new platform and quickly improve their operations in the new virtualized environment.

Enhanced Partner Training for HUS VM

Hitachi Data Systems will include all HUS VM partner training into the Hitachi TrueNorth Partner Scholarship Program. The Hitachi TrueNorth Scholarship, on approval, provides free training to partners and is available for all training provided by the award-winning Hitachi Data Systems Academy. The TrueNorth program aligns with partner needs and ensures partners are empowered to learn, understand and create innovative solutions based on Hitachi Unified Storage. Hitachi TrueNorth partners can find out more details on the latest offerings for HUS VM by accessing the company’s online training portal.

Supporting Customer Quotes

Devon Energy: “HUS VM is the perfect combination of enterprise performance and feature set in a power-packed modular format. This allows Devon to remain agile and efficient within our primary and secondary data centers without the need for special power and floor space. The fact that we rolled the system onto our data center floor and within 45 minutes had more capacity and capabilities ready for a production workload than our previous platform shows that this new array is going to be game changer for companies looking for enterprise functionality in a smaller footprint.” – Steven Ruby, lead storage engineer, Storage & Data Protection Services

Falabella: “We are impressed with the advanced capabilities of Hitachi Unified Storage VM. Combining legendary Hitachi reliability with market leading enterprise-class storage virtualization offers an unprecedented return on investment. The HUS VM data migration offering will greatly simplify our storage infrastructure. We also see a great fit for a secondary site companion to our existing Hitachi VSP. HUS VM allows us to address our concerns around future data growth while improving the efficiency of our current environment.” – Cesar Morales Godoy, operational technology manager, Administradora de Servicios y Sistemas Automatizados

TDC Hosting: “TDC Hosting is a trusted IT hosting supplier committed to giving our customers the best IT infrastructure available, ensuring seamless outsourced services 24/7. We have used technology from Hitachi Data Systems for the last five years benefitting from the knowledge, support, performance, stability and cost savings its products give TDC Hosting. Hitachi Unified Storage VM is the latest offering from Hitachi Data Systems we will be reviewing because of the scalability and functionality that we have not currently found elsewhere in the market.” – Andreas Holmblad, storage administrator

The University of Melbourne, Australia: “At the University of Melbourne we are currently evaluating Hitachi Unified Storage VM as a replacement for our previous generation Hitachi storage array. HUS VM looks very attractive to us as it simplifies transitioning our current virtualized environment while providing the additional benefits of now being able to virtualize any data type and maximize storage performance using Hitachi Dynamic Tiering.” – Niels Madsen, team leader, Storage Services, Information Technology Services

vonRoll item AG: “In our industry, high performance and reliability of systems is essential. Our experience of using storage solutions by Hitachi Data Systems has always met and even exceeded our expectations. The new Hitachi Unified Storage VM is a product we’re very interested in as we’re always looking at ways to make our data management easier and more efficient. Its single software management and ability to virtualize all data types across our existing assets are very interesting to us.” – Roy Feller, manager Datacenter Services

Hitachi Data Systems provides best-in-class information technologies, services and solutions that deliver compelling customer ROI, unmatched return on assets (ROA) and demonstrable business impact. With a vision that IT must be virtualized, automated, cloud-ready and sustainable, Hitachi Data Systems offers solutions that improve IT costs and agility. With more than 5,800 employees worldwide, Hitachi Data Systems does business in more than 100 countries and regions. Hitachi Data Systems products, services and solutions are trusted by the world’s leading enterprises, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 100 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune Global 100. Hitachi Data Systems believes that data drives our world – and information is the new currency. To learn more, visit: http://www.hds.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2011 (ended March 31, 2012) consolidated revenues totaled 9,665 billion yen ($117.8 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes information and telecommunication systems, power systems, industrial, transportation and urban development systems, as well as the sophisticated materials and key devices that support them. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

1HUS VM requires 40% less power to operate and cool. Using publicly available product specifications and the same cost of power and space for equivalent capacities, the monthly operating cost of an EMC VMAX 10K is $9,820; HUS VM is 40% less at $5,890 (9,820-5890=3,930, 3930/9820=.40).